Menu

Emoticons Enhance Communication Online

For those of you new to Emoticons you have tuned into the right page for a little primer on the subject. Emoticons are a way to make correspondence on the Internet come alive and be more expressive.

Think of it in this way: someone tells you a joke and you laugh, have a smile on your face or giggle. If you receive this same joke online the sender can not see you laughing or the smile on your face. You are able to let them see your reaction when you use Emoticons.

When you share information online there is often an emotional aspect that goes with it. Before the use of Emoticons it was not possible to relay this to the people with whom you were communicating. In fact, one of the reasons Emoticons were invented was to help keep people from miscommunicating and misunderstanding the content and intent of online correspondence.

Emoticons are able to give people who are communicating online emotional cues. There are the visual aspect of online communication. Thev can help clarify a message and let the other correspondent know how they are feeling.

Two broad categories of Emoticons exist. There are the positive Emoticons and the negative ones. Sometimes because the use of these Emoticons is so widespread and careless there are some of the little smiley faces that have almost no emotional content whatsoever. Some of the other non-standard Emoticons are used only for amusement value and really donâ€™t have much effect in relaying a true emotional message.

The standard Emoticons are usually the most effective because they are visually easy to understand. They are the ones that resemble actual facial expressions.